A reader named Matt responds to my Omar Barghouti post of yesterday and raises the issues of one-state and the right of return. To be journalistic about it, these issues have often divided the Palestinian solidarity movement. Medea Benjamin and Naomi Klein have both stated that they are agnostic about one state or two states. And meantime, Norman Finkelstein dropped out of the Free Gaza march recently over right of return language, which he opposes. On the other hand, the group Jews Against the Occupation specifically coalesced around support for the right of return. I gather that Palestinians are not so divided about the right. And yes, Matt is right in saying that this site has largely avoided tackling the question. I publish his letters to stir debate and help people think.
I was at the Barghouti/Fletcher "debate" and it went essentially how Barghouti described it in your interview. Fletcher was a last minute replacement for what I can only assume was a more astute and well-equipped defender of Israel and Zionism. It was as if, in a last ditch effort to fill the slot, the organizers had shepherded any random Jew from the pews of a nearby synagogue and forced him to debate Omar Barghouti. He had absolutely no frame of reference and it was an embarrassing spectacle.
But the real reason I’m writing is to mention something that you may already know but didn’t include in your piece on BDS/Barghouti, which is that the BDS movement, officially, is a one-state movement. This may have been obvious to you. It wasn’t to me, until the debate the other night (and I had seen Barghouti speak at Israeli Apartheid Week events on several occasions). I approached Barghouti afterwards and asked him, "If Israel and the PLO were to somehow negotiate a two-state agreement that, as per the Clinton Parameters, forwent the full implementation of the Palestinian right of return in exchange for a token acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering and financial compensation for the refugees, what would become of the BDS movement?" His reply was that BDS would reject the agreement absolutely. The fight for the refugees’ return and the full democratization of Israel would continue, Palestinian state or no.
And here is a subject I rarely see discussed on your blog. Where do you guys stand on the right of return? Human, political, and national rights for every human being are an absolute, universal imperative–this is indisputable. But where does the right of a refugee to return to the land from which he/she was uprooted 60 years ago fall into this scheme, if the human, political and national rights just mentioned can be satisfied in a different way? If the Palestinians languishing in refugee camps can be resettled, with the help of international aid, in a settler-free West Bank, under the sovereign control of a representative government, then what moral basis remains for the kind of struggle BDS/Barghouti envisions? If the two-state solution is totally defunct, as it may in fact be, then a protracted (and sure-to-be-horrifically-bloody) civil rights struggle is the only remaining option. But if its not defunct, then what basis do we have for supporting a movement that rejects absolutely anything short of the full return of the refugees? I cannot tell if this is what you yourself endorse, and if so, I would like to be convinced.
But as it stands, I cannot grasp the reasoning by which, of the millions of refugees created in the great wars and decolonizations of the 20th century, most of whom never returned to their homes, the Palestinian refugees are uniquely deserving of this right–a right seemingly in excess of the universal human rights to self-determination that everyone deserves. This is my sole remaining internal conflict vis-a-vis Israel/Palestine.
Weiss notes that he has generally said that Palestinians are the ones to extinguish that right, if they choose to, not Americans; also that emerging international law post WW2, and the United Nations, upheld the Palestinians’ right of return. And a refrain of this site, that recognition is absolutely essential, and the first step, even 60 years later. Recognition of Jewish refugees’ rights, within two years of the end of WW2, propelled the creation of Israel in the first place. Matt again:
Naturally it will be the Palestinians’ call whenever a deal is struck. But I think Americans have a responsibility, given our massive material and diplomatic investment in this conflict, to dictate to the parties how we’d prefer it turn out, whether or not our preferred outcome maps directly onto Palestinian notions of justice.
Even at its most noble, American policy has never aimed at universal justice. It aims at nurturing a Palestinian leadership that is willing to forfeit the Palestinian people’s most sanctified demand–the right of return–in the belief that if only we could create a viable and sovereign Palestinian state the issue of justice for the refugees would wither away. Personally, this policy strikes me as the optimal trade-off between abstract justice and a recognition of the sad, violent realities that would await a protracted one-state civil rights struggle.
But like you said, these Barghoutis–Omar, Mustafa, Marwan–are the future of the Palestinian leadership. And if these guys are die hard one-staters, this may be a good thing for the cause of universal justice (again, I await an explanation, from anybody, of how the right of return actually fits into our shared conception of universal, moral justice, above and beyond the legal justice achieved by Israel’s compliance with UN resolutions, etc.), but it is a decidedly poor outcome for American foreign policy. And that’s the perspective I tend to see things from (I work in a policy institute, so it’s de rigueur).
Helena Cobban, a writer I admire, claims to be "agnostic" on the one-state, two-state question–a choice she, like you, leaves to Palestinians. But Americans have a stake in the answer to that question, so why shouldn’t she, or you, or I, boldly state a preference, so long as our moral reasoning is sound?
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
It has always seemed to me that the right of return for the Palestinian refugees is far more likely to be realized in the context of a two-state scenario than a binational state, if you consider the return as to the Palestinian state.
But this is primarily a gauge of Israeli intransigence. If you list Palestinian demands according to Israeli resistance, the return of the Palestinians to an Israeli or binational state would probably be at the top, given the fear of the “demographic threat.”
I suspect that if Israel were actually forced to make a choice, they would be willing to abandon the WB settlers and E Jerusalem if this would let them retain their Jewish majority. But what Israel wants above all is not to be forced into any such choice, not to be forced into any kind of concession at all.
The right of return should be offered to any living individual that was displaced from a home within sovereign Israel, and can reasonably demonstrate it.
The right of return to Israel should not be afforded to an individual that is descended from a former resident of geographic sovereign Israel, and definitely not from geographic Palestine.
A Palestinian state can offer the right of return to whomever it wishes.
Insisting on the right of return for all descendants of anywhere in Palestine (Israel, West Bank, East Bank) is an insistence on civil war, and cannot then be called “non-violent”. It is non-violent in tactic only.
Israelis are NOT interlopers. They are three generations residents, citizens. This is not Great Britain and India, NOT white South Africa and black South Africa.
Of course, the above only applies to non-Jews, right Witty? Jews have an unlimited “right of return” even if none of their distant ancestors ever came from there. Doble standards again.
The right of a refugee to return to his/her country of origin is enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.The problem with your formula is that it encourages the delay and denial of those human rights by giving them only to the those who were displaced and not to their descendents Therefore, a country need only delay and delay the restoration of those rights and thus succeed in totally negating those rights, which is what Israel has done for over 60 years. Every reasoned discussion that I have seen of the Palestinian right of return takes note of this and affirms that the right of return exists until it is offered and declined. Thus, a refugee who is banned during his lifetime from returning to his home and never given the possibility of return can pass on the right to his descendants and their descendants, until the offer is made and either accepted or declined. Only this can prevent States from making a mockery of this basic human right by playing a waiting game.
My understanding is that many European states now allow those who can prove that their forbears were citizens of those countries to apply for citizenship, and that many Israeli descendants of Jews who were forced to flee during WWII are taking advantage of the offer of dual citizenship. I think that is a good thing.
You are aware, I hope, that white South Africans have a much, much longer history in South Africa(since the 1600′s) than the the vast majority of Jewish Israelis in Israel. (And that 30% of Israelis are foreign born.) Regardless of your misstating of history, the right of return does not force Israeli Jews to leave, it only grants Palestinians their basic human right to return.
There were indeed interlopers in 1948. Check the definition of “interloper.” Then read a few UN docs from that time period. They interloped all over the place, with guns and terror.
From its inception Israel has always been a colonial enterprise.
Instead of “three generations”, perhaps the poster could conflate that to make it more grandiose and use phrases like “half a century”.
Poor Dick Witts, right as rain
Zionism lite done ate his brain.
Let a few Arabs come back with the Yids,
But good G-d almighty, don’t bring the kids!
Israel’s grown and had enough of war,
But you never know when it might want some more.
If Jews have to share with other non-Jews,
That’s barely any different than Dachau Blues!
And that’s what humanism means to Dick,
Talk new-agey, but carry a separatist stick.
By gosh your generousity astounds me
You’re saying let the elderly come back and die, just not in the arms of their families. Come back to your original home, live all alone for a few years, then die. Lovely.
I’ll guess you allow them to be buried, not necessarily in the same cemetary as their ancestors which has a fair probability of having been bulldozed over for some Jewish-only use. Or to make a park. Maybe not next to their relatives from their town or village who are in a mass grave somewhere, either, whether or not somewhere in the Israeli archives theres some record of where that is.
If you maintain this, Matt:
Then how do you jibe that with the current Israeli contention that the Bible gives Jews the right to the land after 2500 years? Remember, Netanyahu et al no longer maintains that it was the Holocaust that caused Israel to be created, it was the Bible.
The Palestinians are unique in that they were explicitly granted the right of return by the UN in 1948 and Israel refused to allow it – in fact, Israel murdered those who attempted it. So the Palestinian status of refugees was directly caused by Israel’s flouting of the UN resolution and can not be defended by anyone with a regard for law.
National rights cannot cancel individual rights. Regardless of the national-political arrangement achieved, property must be returned to individual owners or their descendants. This right cannot be renounced by political leaders. In addition, all citizens of British Mandatory Palestine (whether by birth or naturalisation) must be allowed to return to any part of that territory. Considering that a) Palestinian refugees were forced (directly or indirectly) to leave their homes b) their right to return has been recognised by the United Nations, and c) Israel has, in the 61 years of its existence, granted citizenship to millions of Jews, without documented proof of prior residence in Palestine or descent from documented citizens of Palestine – it would seem unreasonable and unjust in the extreme to deny the descendants of Palestinian citizens the right to enter and reside in any part of the former territory of Mandatory Palestine.
Furthermore, anything less than full and equal rights for all citizens – regardless of ethnicity or religion – would be a violation of democratic principles, incompatible with a just solution in I/P.
These two principles (ROR and equal rights) cannot mean anything but a single state. So why do some who support them continue to insist that they are “agnostic”? Maybe for the same reason that some atheists insist on calling themselves agnostics.
Great answer.
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Maybe I didn’t articulate my question properly. It was not a question about law. I am familiar with the UN declarations on refugees. The question is simply this: since we know that a one-state, civil rights-type struggle (i.e., a struggle to implement those laws) will take decades to succeed and produce (hundreds of?) thousands of dead, isn’t it morally preferable to allow the realization of Palestinians’ basic human rights in the framework of a separate state? Once those basic rights–security, self-determination–are realized, then the “right of return” simply becomes an issue of property rights, which is hardly, in my mind, worth huge amounts of bloodshed (whereas the other, human rights I mentioned are non-negotiable).
Thanks for the question and the clarification, Matt. The way I see it, a “separate state” – at least of a kind that would ease tensions and reduce violence – is a complete impossibility, due to Israel’s basic approach (supported by the US) to the Palestinians, as not entitled to equality in terms of freedom, independence, security, resources, etc. I therefore believe that the only way to further any kind of violence-reduction is to insist on the Palestinians’ basic human rights. That approach may not actually result in a single democratic state in I/P, but it will (hopefully) afford the Palestinians the international support and clout they need to defend themselves and live something resembling decent lives. In this case, the right thing to do would also appear to be the smart thing to do.
Even without the civil rights type struggle we have seen thousands of dead and decades of oppression, and without a push for equal rights we will likely see much more of the same, if not worse.
I don’t think that Israelis and the Israeli state will allow the realization of the Palestinians basic human rights UNTIL they are willing to accept that Palestinians are in fact, as humans, entitled to equal treatment. The talk about two states never goes anywhere precisely because the Israelis refuse to face this fact. Think about it. Israel has been in charge of the West Bank for decades, and yet they have done nothing to improve the lot of the Palestinians, and much to worsen it, when it would have been in the best interests of the peace Israel claims to want to encourage and improve the life that exists for the Palestinians. This is likewise the case for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have not been treated with equality by Israel, even though doing so would have been the best argument for allowing the continuance of Jewish rule in Israel. Israelis won’t allow a second state with full rights for Palestinians until they can be made to see the Palestinians as equals.
I’ve seen Israeli Jews and Palestinians from the West Bank form great bonds of friendship and purpose in reaching for equality. This could be the way forward for Israel. Perhaps Shmuel would be one of the better posters to answer this question, or someone like Joseph Dana, but I don’t see that the future of equal treatment regardless of religion or ethnicity will result in anymore bloodshed and violence than does the present system of oppression and inequality.
AH, I see Shmuel has already answered the question much more succinctly than I. I heartily concur with his answer.
But no one has the right to give up another people’s rights for them.
If the Palestinians make this choice, that is their right.
You characterization of Israel’s behavior is of course correct, but I think it’s besides the point. If anyone ever believed that Israel was going to negotiate a two-state solution on its own, out of the sheer love of justice, they would have a totally deranged conception of state behavior. A two-state solution is manifestly not in the Israel’s strategic interest, as Israelis define it. They see the borders as indefensible, they see Greater Israel their God-given birthright, they see the Palestinians as barbarian hordes. A two-state solution was never on their agenda, and nobody should ever expect it to be.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It will just take an exogenous force–the United States–to impose that solution on the parties. Why? Because two states are in the American national interest. It is in the American national interest to avoid a one-state civil rights struggle. The U.S. has multiple priorities in the Middle East, and all the problems associated with these priorities would be exacerbated by continued Israeli brutality. Were the Palestinians to shift their struggle to one-state mode, it would ensure another 50 years of Cast Lead-grade violence, all of which would be identified with the U.S. Since there’s no way an American President could withdraw American support for Israel, thanks to the Lobby, the only option is to press hard for two states.
Now, if you want to argue that two states are impossible because of the sheer number of settlers in the West Bank, or something like that, that’s different. But I think to predicate the possibility or impossibility of the two-state solution on the attitude of the Israelis is to miss a fundamental truth, which is that the two-state solution is America’s solution. Whether the Israelis or the Palestinians desire a two-state outcome should be irrelevant to our policy.
That said, Obama is failing. He has no strategy. It’s totally miserable and disheartening. I wish it weren’t so.
Matt,
For the very reasons you describe, the United States is not going to impose anything near a viable two-state solution on Israel. If we leave things up to the US government (any US government), the violence and oppression cannot but continue. It is clear that the US, like Israel, will not act, unless pressured/forced to do so, and there is no pressure whatsoever for a viable two-state solution, but merely for the illusion of a process leading to a two-state solution. Our “last hope”, Barack Obama, has proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. An international movement (including Israeli and Palestinian human rights activists) however, modelled on the anti-Apartheid campaign, could tilt the balance in Israel and in Washington, through the interests that control them. Without such a campaign – which can only based on recognition of Palestinian equality and human rights – nothing but endless talks, violence and oppresssion, will result.
BDS
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Well, in general I don’t swallow arguments that go “this isn’t happening now, and has never happened before, therefore it will never happen in the future.” There are huge institutional obstacles and Obama seems to lack the wherewithal. No question. But I don’t see any reason why its totally beyond the reach of a determined President, especially now that J Street exists to provide some degree of political cover.
But, anyway, that doesn’t preclude the BDS people from continuing to agitate for human rights and democracy. They should. It will make two states seem even more urgent. But if two states somehow materialize and the BDS people continue agitating, I couldn’t support them.
The problem is, Matt, while everyone sits around and waits for a sufficiently determined US president to come onto the scene, Israel continues to consolidate its hold on the land, settlers keep arriving, fanaticism keeps growing. It’s not that it will soon be too late, it is already too late.
It’s a dead parrot.
Except that it appears you have swallowed that very argument with respect to a one-state solution, or any chance of equal rights within Israel.
If two or more “states” do materialize and are “bantustans” under the nominal control of Israel without full legal human rights and protections, and the Palestinians are still treated like third class citizens within Israel, why would you not support continued BDS? It seems from your arguments your interest in two states overwhelms your interest in full human rights for all involved. That’s your right, bt don’t try to convince yourself you are interested in justice, because that does not appear to be your main concern here.
potsherd, I don’t see how democratizing Israeli society through BDS is any more of a realistic prospect than uprooting the settlers and repatriating stolen West Bank property to its original Palestinian owners. They are both enormous feats. If one can be achieved, so can the other.
and tree, if you don’t actually read what I write, then there’s no reason for us to have a conversation:
“Except that it appears you have swallowed that very argument with respect to a one-state solution, or any chance of equal rights within Israel.”
I have both a) never said that anywhere and b) implied exactly the opposite. Everything I’ve written here implies that I see the one-state solution as a clear possibility–just not one that would be in the American strategic interest.
“If two or more “states” do materialize and are “bantustans” under the nominal control of Israel without full legal human rights and protections, and the Palestinians are still treated like third class citizens within Israel, why would you not support continued BDS?”
In what I wrote earlier, I said that any Palestinian state should be “viable and sovereign” which would mean, by definition, not a bantustan. Were it a bantustan, neither I nor any Palestinian delegation would support it.
“Don’t try to convince yourself you are interested in justice, because that does not appear to be your main concern here”
First, I clearly stated that my interest was in the American strategic position, not in the realization of Palestinian conceptions (and especially not Israeli conceptions) of justice. Second, if you are going to go ad hominem, there’s no reason for us to speak.
Matt, BDS is a technique for motivating Israel to do what it has to do, to take the next step in confronting the enemy it has fostered in its own belly.
I am not sanguine that either of these things will actually be accomplished. I think the status quo will be perpetuated until somebody sets off a nuke.
Matt, I am reading what you write, and what you write appears to me to be inconsistent. You have already had to “clarify” your position about the Palestinians’ “rights in excess” and frankly it sounds to me like special pleading and so I have said so. If you are not willing to accept criticism from others according to their interpretations of what you are saying, then what is the point of posting your opinion here?
I didn’t think we were talking about Palestinian or Israeli “conceptions” of justice. I thought we were talking about universal conceptions of justice. Are we not?
And your statement brings up another question I was going to ask. Why do you think it is not in the US’s interest to promote a truly democratic and non-discriminatory Israel? Frankly, in our attempts to convince other countries in the rightness of treating all their citizens equally and in a democratic fashion, our blindness towards the glaring inequities, and our silent approval of same does more to hurt American interests than support for equal civil rights in Israel will ever do. In fact, a demand that our allies live by the same code we demand of our enemies can only help American interests.
I did not engage in an ad hominem. You have just stated again that you are more interested in American interests, which you are separating from any concept of justice. Why do you then wonder why it appears to me that justice is not your main concern, or think that I am engaging in ad hominems to say so. Again, your thoughts appear to me to be inconsistent.
“Why do you think it is not in the US’s interest to promote a truly democratic and non-discriminatory Israel?”
I do think it is. The question is whether that Israel will stretch across all of historic Palestine or whether it will terminate at the pre-1967 border and abut an equally democratic state of Palestine. I explained above why I think the second course is preferable. But within the borders of Israel, whatever they may end up being, I support full democracy and a non-discriminatory order.
As for this:
“It seems from your arguments your interest in two states overwhelms your interest in full human rights for all involved”
It depends on how you define “full human rights.” As I have written, I don’t think its a universal human right to return to property that’s been expropriated by a state. But it IS a human right to live in a state that guarantees you property rights and physical security. This is achievable by establishing a Palestinian state. In the absence of a Palestinian state, the Israelis are in perpetual violation of that human right. But again, this is my personal understanding of human rights. You are free to differ. Personally, I think satisfying American interests also, incidentally, entails satisfying Palestinian core human rights.
These people did not just have their property “expropriated” by the state of Israel. They were ethnically cleansed from Israel and prohibited from returning under threat of death. This is not just a case of “eminent domain” gone wild, even if that’s how you wish to describe it. If you think that it is not a universal right to not be victimized by ethnic cleansing, then I suggest you think again. And before you insist that that is not what you said, it is what you imply. By insisting that, denied of that basic right not to be ethnically cleansed, there is no remedy to undo that denial that coincides with what you consider a universal right, then the right means nothing. Having the right to live in some other country that respects your right to live where you choose in that country is not a full remedy, nor is it a universal right if your “right” does not include living as a citizen in the country of your birth . Article 13 is a basic human right against ethnic cleansing, as well as a right to leave where one is persecuted.
Do you think that Jews who were forced out of Germany pre-WWII have no right to return there if they so desired?
They do. So do Palestinians. But is it a core human right (i.e. should it never be sacrificed in the name of securing other, more important rights)? Probably not. If the reality of the situation was that Jews had to live indefinitely under military occupation, deprived of safety, property, self-determination, expression, etc., because the Germans would not let them return to Hamburg, and the situation was not going to change without 50 years of bloody struggle against the German government, then I would say its preferable to establish an independent state where they can enjoy all the rights I just mentioned, even if that means having to forfeit the right to return to Hamburg. Your position is this: that if the choice exists between 50 years of bloody struggle for the right of return, on the one hand, and an independent state on the other, the 50 years of bloody struggle is preferable because it satisfies the right to return to the land of one’s birth. I’m not a Palestinian so I can’t decide for the Palestinians what they should choose. But as an American, I can choose what policy I think my government should pursue, and I think the independent state option is better both for America and for the Palestinians.
No, you seem to think that it is an either or, and I do not. The primary struggle has so far NOT been over the right of return, which most Palestinian leaders have been willing to forgo in all but symbolic numbers, but over the right to be free of occupation and to have an independent state. You somehow think that Israel, despite all indications to the contrary, will cease the bloody repression of Palestinians and grant them a state, and that will end the conflict. But if the Israeli attitude that the Palestinians are lesser beings continues, I can assure you that there will be another 50 years of struggle and it will have nothing to do with ROR. So what must be pressured is exactly a civil rights struggle, which will by necessity have to be, for the most part, nonviolent on the part of the Palestinians, and will have to be accompanied by external pressure on Israel to beome a country of all its citizens. Such a struggle will probably be much less violent than things are currently, as there will, in essence, not be Palestinians and Israelis on opposite sides, but instead those who favor equality for all against those who do not. My point is that once Israelis can accept Palestinians as equals the number of “states” really will not matter, and until they do, no amount of “states” will end the bloodshed and oppression.
Again, as much as you repeat the contrary, the right NOT to be ethnically cleansed is NOT a property right. It is separate and distinct from that, as Shmuel so rightly put it.
This is an interesting and important debate. My first thought is that orthodoxy on this question should not be necessary in the Palestinian rights movement. Above all, we should not let this become a tool to divide us (as Hussein Ibish seems to intend). We can all support BDS, in protest of the same policies, with different ideal solutions in mind. I support talking about these ideas, making our opinions known, but having BDS be agnostic, and ultimately taking our cues from credible representatives of the Palestinian people. That they are currently divided on this, seems to me to support the official agnosticism of solidarity movements.
But, in my opinion, the one-state idea is more effective and seems to be the way of the future.
Omar Bargouthi’s embrace of the one-state idea reads to me like an assertion of Palestinian-citizens-of-Israel and refugee voices, as a Palestinian state does not represent much redress or empowerment for them. That is another strength of the one-state idea, I think, is that it serves to once again unite Palestinians in a cause that represents all of their interests.
I also want to address a common assumption that this article raises: that a Palestinian struggle for rights in a single state would lead to an even bloodier conflict than what is ongoing. I seriously question that premise.
It seems logical to me that a change in the demand of the Palestinian movement would bring about some change in the form of the struggle. (As in the aforementioned inclusion of more Palestinian-Israeli and refugee voices.) And it seems to me that armed struggle is less consistent with a demand of inclusion than with one of separation. It would pretty plainly be a less effective tactic, in light of that new goal. Maybe it would not become a completely abandoned tactic, but a less important one. (I could be wrong, but this is where logic leads me.)
Now I’m certainly not one to assume that Palestinians alone start the “cycle of violence”. I’m sure the assumption here comes from the observation that Israelis are even more opposed to one (democratic) state than two states. But Israel has shown that it damages its cause internationally with one-sided violence, as in Gaza. So its violence would either become more one-sided in the absence of significant Palestinian threats, or Israel would have to restrain itself.
The likely result of a one-state movement, it seems to me, is less bloodshed.
Of course, in the absence of violent resistance, the Palestinians and allies would have to devote serious energy to nonviolent resistance, in order not to facilitate the status quo on Israel’s behalf. But, I think the one state demand is more morally urgent, powerful, and comprehensible in light of other well-understood historical justice struggles (South Africa, US civil rights etc.), and would itself be a huge asset allowing stronger non-violent resistance. It’s a demand that’s, simply, harder morally and image-wise to reject (or hopefully, to disguise your rejection of it).
Finally, my moral argument for right of return (beyond refugees born in now-Israel, as their right should be self-evident) rests simply on the “do unto others…” credo. Israel as a state, and Israelis in general, unequivocally affirm a Jewish national right to live in Israel/Palestine, based on group identification with the land (considered their land of origin). Part of recognizing Palestinians as equal human beings, is recognizing the equality of their claims to the exact same national rights. Jews, of all people, should understand Palestinians experience of diaspora and the longing to return to a cherished homeland. There is no reason why a Jewish and a Palestinian right of return (to the same territory) should be incompatible.
Shmuel also makes good arguments on this point, more simply than I could.
A great encapsulation of the basic truth behind the one state idea.
Robin:
Precisely, robin. As Edward Said asserted, a solution that does not address the issues of Palestinian citizens of Israel and refugees, as well as the issue of the OT (and statehood) is no solution at all. Arafat ignored that at his peril, as have all of the “comfortable” Palestinian leaders since.
Robin:
Another astute observation, robin. Thanks.
Robin,
Thanks for your input on this. Great comments. I also want to thank you for your explanation of why you think that the struggle for equality rather than separate statehood will be a less violent one than the present. You articulated my thoughts much better than I could have done.
The point of uniqueness with the Palestinians is not that only they are deserving. It is a basic human right. The uniqueness of the Palestinians is that they have been denied that right en masse for over 60 years. Many refugees do not return to their homes, but that is their decision and their right to make that decision.
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 13.
* (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
* (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
—–
Article 15.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
——
Article 17.
* (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
The Palestinian Right of Return is firmly in line with the universal rights of man. They are not asking for special privileges, only for their rights, denied these 60 odd years.
See my clarification above.
But your clarification seems to negate your original point:
What, then, was your point in questioning why Palestinians are “uniquely deserving” and questioning the right of return as being “in excess of the universal human rights”when you state that you understand the universal rights of refugees These basic rights are all that the Palestinians are asking for, not some “excess”.
I think the confusion is coming from a distinction I have in my mind between “universal rights” and legal rights granted by the UN. I see self-determination, the rights to religious and self-expression, the right to be protected from undue bodily harm, etc., as rights that exist whether or not they are codified and promulgated by the UN. I don’t see property rights as having this sacred or universal character. And, in my mind, if the Palestinians can achieve these universal rights (as I see them) in a two-state framework, then the right of return guaranteed by the UN ends up just being a property right. The right to reclaim stolen land. Which, to me, is secondary to the other human, universal rights, and could conceivably be forfeit.
Matt,
I think it is worthwhile trying to understand Palestinian needs and aspirations, if we are going to discuss their “universal rights”. My impression from speaking to Palestinians and from my reading on the subject (particularly Danny Rubinstein’s magnificent Under the Fig Tree) is that Palestinian “nationalism” is fundamentally different from Zionism (and perhaps western nationalism in general). The connection of Palestinians to Palestine is not a general concept associated primarily with “self-determination” and “nationhood” (realisable in any part of the national territory) but a connection to specific place, ancestral homes and lands (or the idea of these places – to the extent that they have been altered drastically since 1948). In order to satisfy the “right to self-expression”, as you put it, this need and aspiration must be recognised – as the fundamental right to return to these places, if they so choose. Many (most, according to studies) will not wish to return (for the very reason that these places no longer exist), but that cannot justify denying them the right to do so. I would really appreciate the input of Palestinians here, regarding this idea. It’s a little weird (and presumptuous) for me to write about their “needs” in this way.
With regard to property, I cannot see how Israel, which has laid claim – both nationally and individually (neither compromising the other) – to property owned by Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied lands (as well as neutral Switzerland), can deny Palestinians the right to their expropriated property, claiming that such a right is not “universal”. This would be yet another example of refusing to afford Palestinians the rights that Jews claim for themselves. Hardly a basis for peace or even violence-reduction. More like a way of perpetuating and even increasing resentment.
Shmuel,
Absolutely Palestinians deserve compensation for their property. But the question of actually returning to reclaim that property is different.
I cannot be sure about this, but I would assume that the German government did not, and would not, expropriate property from the ancestors of people who received stolen Jewish land/buildings from the Nazis, in order to revert it to its Jewish owners, if those owners wished to return to Germany. If this has actually happened, I’d be interested in reading about it, and it would change the way I think about these things.
And as to the question of understanding the Palestinian people’s deep connection to their ancestral homeland, I think, whether you buy it or not (I certainly don’t), you’d hear religious/messianic Jews speak about “Eretz Israel” in the same way that Palestinians talk and think about Jaffa or Ramle or wherever. Were I an Israeli, I wouldn’t support the Jewish law of return. I do not believe that a Jew from Brooklyn, just because he feels a deep spiritual-national kinship with “Eretz Israel,” should be able to settle there. Equally, I do not think the Palestinian “ancestral” connection to a particular piece of land, however strong this feeling is, should factor into a discussion of human rights. Palestinians deserve by right a comfortable, defensible, non-resource-deprived piece of land, they deserve safety and the right to determine their own political arrangements on that land. But a discussion of law and rights cannot deal in quasi-mystical categories, like Jewish longing for “Eretz Israel” or even Palestinian ancestral connections.
Matt:
There have been many cases of German (and other courts) returning property to its rightful Jewish owners or their descendants. A cousin of mine regained her family’s property in the heart of Berlin through the German courts – without returning to live Germany.
Regarding my comments on Palestinian nationalism, I don’t think it is comparable to the fervor of messianic Jews. Historically, Zionism has treated the existence of a Jewish state in some part of Palestine as its primary goal. It is true that some of those who believe in “Greater Israel” for religious or similar reasons have a historic or even mystical attachment to specific places, but it is not the same as an attachment to a house, a tree or a village rooted in living family memory. Moreover, the stress for many/most Jewish territorial maximalists is on sovereignty – which is not the case for most Palestinians, who would appear willing to forgo sovereignty if they could return to Haifa Acre, or Jaffa . The bottom line, if this analysis is correct, is that having a Jewish state in some part of historic Eretz Yisrael could satisfy the aspirations of most Zionist Jews – which are national, but a similar arrangement could not satisfy the aspirations of most Palestinians – which are personal/familial/local. In any event, this is a secondary argument. As I have explained, there are other, more obvious reasons to strive for the Palestinian ROR.
I understand your concern with “US strategic interests”, but I’m sure you must recognise that these do not necessarily coincide with Palestinian or Israeli interests, or even with those of the vast majority of US citizens. Judging by US government actions in recent years (assuming these are decided in accordance with strategic interests), I can’t help but conclude that both political parties see perpetual conflict in the ME as being in the best interests of the United States. I have no other explanation for their conduct. I think BDS and a rights-based approach might change just change their minds (through the corporate and other “strategic” interests that help determine policy).
Judging by US government actions in recent years (assuming these are decided in accordance with strategic interests), I can’t help but conclude that both political parties see perpetual conflict in the ME as being in the best interests of the United States. I have no other explanation for their conduct.
Really, Shmuel, you have no other explanation for U.S. behavior? Not perhaps that a domestic lobby allied to a foreign government consistently frustrates the realization of the true, and in the case of Obama the stated national interest?
I would like to clarify something that seems to have gotten a bit tangled up here. There is the right to claim actual property, the right to compensation for property and the right to return to what is now Israel. These three rights are distinct.
If I understand what you’re saying Matt, you agree that Palestinians have a right to compensation, but not to actual property (I’m not quite sure why), and not to return to territory that is now part of the State of Israel. Why is compensation more in the US strategic interest than the other two? Is it because Israel is more likely to accept it (as long as Uncle Sam foots the bill)? Why is it not in the US strategic interest to determine what the Palestinians would be more likely to accept, and convince Israel by threatening to withold aid and weapons? Unless Israel’s desires are more important than those of the Palestinians – which brings us back to the beginning of the discussion. There are some carts and some horses here, and I’m not sure they’re being hitched in the right order.
Matt:
I was waiting for you to say that. So we are not talking about US strategic interests, we are talking about the interests of the Zionist lobby – in which case, a viable two-state solution is certainly not on the cards any time in the forseeable future. I hope you’re not pinning your hopes on J-Street. Apart from the fact that it is completely insignificant compared to AIPAC, even its positions do not meet the minimum conditions for any kind of viable solution. So the question is not about US interests or universal rights, but about how to fight the Zionist lobby. Personally, I think the BDS/human rights approach is a good strategy in that department as well. But as long as we are trying to defuse the lobby and allow “true national interests” to shine through, why not go for a real solution? I’m very confused about where you suggest sacrificing Palestinian rights and why.
Why is compensation more in the US strategic interest than the other two? Is it because Israel is more likely to accept it (as long as Uncle Sam foots the bill)?
Yes.
Why is it not in the US strategic interest to determine what the Palestinians would be more likely to accept, and convince Israel by threatening to withold aid and weapons?
It would be in the American interest to do this. We just lack the capacity. Obama can’t seem to coerce a settlement freeze, no less something like the right of return, which Israelis universally regard as national suicide. If you really believe that withholding military aid–something Israelis don’t even need, and something Israeli neocons have been urging them to give up for years–would induce Israelis to allow the refugees to return, I think you may be deluding yourself. It’s just not within our power.
Matt:
If you think that the United States is incpable of bringing Israel to its knees by witholding its support (financial, military, diplomatic, economic), then I think that you may be deluding yourself. So we return to the Zionist lobby. The lobby will contiue to nix any solution that is in any way acceptable to the Palestinians. So why bother faking it, to produce a “solution” that is only acceptable to one side? The logic here is incredibly circular.
So we are back around, not to what is just, or even in the American interest, but back to ….
which is , again, inconsistent with what you have just said.
We don’t provide Israel with any material aid other than military. The economic aid has been reduced to zero. Israel ranks among the top arms developing and manufacturing countries in the world. Our military aid is nothing but a token of US commitment. It would have no serious impact if withdrawn, although I would say it can’t hurt to try. Our so-called “diplomatic” aid also doesn’t provide any service of value to Israel. The UNGA routinely condemns Israel over the objections of the U.S., to no effect, and as you can see, despite American moral support, Israelis involved in Cast Lead are still under threat of arrest when they visit Europe.
That was not the argument I made. The argument is that not that we WON’T coerce Israel but that we simply don’t have the leverage, even if you totally eliminated the Lobby, we’d still have no leverage over Israel short of military action. And again, its a question of whether you want to wait around for the Lobby to dissolve itself and for the American people to develop the wherewithal to invade Israel and compel them to accept the right of return. Can that happen? If so, its decades off. In the meantime, its conceivable RIGHT NOW that we can secure core Palestinian human rights through the two-state framework. It’s YOU guys who seem to want to subject Palestinians to endless deprivations. Your argument is not simply that a two-state solution is impossible now that 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank. It’s that, even if it were possible RIGHT NOW, you would reject it because the Palestinian right of return would go unrealized. That seems sadistic. Or, if you’re a Palestinian, masochistic.
Again, your point is that we don’t have the leverage, not that one solution or the other, if either is possible, is in the US interest. But if we don’t even have the leverage to end the settlement expansion then we will never have the leverage for a two state solution that will be anything more than bantustans, which you have said you would find unacceptable. My belief is that we do have the leverage, but the question is whether we will use it or not, and whether we will use it for something that is in the interest of justice or the US interest, which should, to my mind, be the same thing. (And granted I know that opinion is not carried by the majority of US leaders, sad to say.)
Again, your argument seems to always end up at what you think is possible, and not at what you think is just or necessarily in the US interest. I disagree with your concept of what is possible and your belief that “two states” will be less bloody than a fight for equality. I believe the fight for equality can be both less bloody and more just and also in the US interest.
I’ve got to go, but I appreciate you taking the time to respond and dialog on this. Thanks.
I personally support a right of return for any person who has left a home territory under pressure. That includes, absolutely, the Jews who fled Arab countries after the establishment of Israel. However, their exodus was different from the Nakba in important ways (especially the “pull” factor of Israel, which in some cases was the whole reason for migration). That right is also between Israel and the relevant countries (some of whom, I believe, have invited Jews to return), and not a Palestinian responsibility.
Matt:
But it is NOT conceivable right now. That is precisely what tree and I and others have been saying. Even a reasonable two-state solution is as impossible as a one-state solution, considering the way that Washington works. It is therefore essential to adopt a strategy that WILL help Palestinians now AND work toward a fundamental shift in policy that is a sine qua non for ANY solution, even a two-state one. To continue to argue over a theoretical impossibility – what would BDS do if a two-state arrangement were to resolve all issues except ROR – is pointless. What is more, it is essentially asking for a huge a priori Palestinian concession in return for nothing, with the excuse that it is more pragmatic and immediate – in a process that will not produce anything anyway, immediately or otherwise.
Matt, (“ I don’t see property rights as having this sacred or universal character. ”) property rights are as old as civilization itself, and in some way precedes the talk of human rights. If you own your land, and you own the right to it, you own the right to protect it, and to exist upon it. The US republic was formed on this principle. Initially, only property owners had voting rights in the USA, and full rights as human beings. Blacks weren’t allowed to own land for a huge portion of US history. Ditto South Africa: The Natives’ Land Act of 1913 kept apartheid in its place until the 1990s by severely restricting the kind of land a black South African could own.
Human rights were an expansion of the idea of property rights, not the other way around. Human rights represent an increase in the state of consciousness of mankind, but property rights are where you should start to clean up this mess.
More…with property rights, you can get a loan against the property, you can grow your own food, you can cooperate with your neighbors and form food collectives, or split the cost of water. Human rights give you the right to assume you can walk down the street without getting shot.
A strict adherence to property rights would also dictate that the largely poor, black victims of subprime mortgage lending should not be allowed to remain in their homes–rather, the banks, which now lawfully own their houses, should be allowed to dispense with them as they see fit for maximum profit.
The point is that property rights and human rights can interfere with the realization of the other, and that in such cases I grant privilege to human rights.
Article 13 is not a property right. It is in fact a “self-determination” right, the right to movement and existence within your own country. Being compensated elsewhere does not negate that right, unless freely chosen by the refugee.
Compensation is a property right, ala the lawsuits against Swiss banks accused of withholding money from Holocaust victims. What you are proposing is ignoring the more basic right, which you claim you are more concerned with, and replacing it with a property right, which you consider a lesser right, and merely addressing the lesser right. You have it backwards.
Matt,
I have to quibble:
(1) That’s precisely what the banks are doing.
(2) There is ample evidence, now, that the 9%, 11% and 13% ARM-triggered interests being charged on these sub-prime loans, which created the mass foreclosures and in an era when these mortgage companies are only charged .25% on the cost of their money, are beset with fraud.
(3) The melt-down that these foreclosures are creating in other areas or parts of the communities affected is what’s driving the effort to keep these people in their homes, not altruism, or love of poor, black people. Massive groups of homeless, out-of-work citizens, destitute, desperate, and with nothing to lose — whether black or white — is a powder-keg waiting to explode.
(4) We’re talking about property rights for an entire people here. The analogy cannot be Blacks in America because the Palestinians are not currently a subset of Israel.
(5) Your argument is jejune.
Matt,
Just to be clear, I used the example of what happened in the US and S.A. in my original post as an example of what would result should Palestinians become assimilated, or whatever word is appropriate, within Israel and they are not granted property rights, the same rights, I might add, they had before the Jews showed up in 1948. Your point was that they dont have a “sacred, or universal character.” I say they do. Much more so than human rights.
www.hsje.org/jews_kicked_out_of_arab_countrie.htm
Jews kicked out of Arab countries
Thanks for bringing that up, Nomi. I fully support the rights of Jews who have unlawfully been deprived of their property in Arab countries to take their cases up with the governments involved. I might even get something out of Libya!
Oh, and if they wish to return and regain their citizenship in those countries, I support that too.
In the India/Pakistan conflict some 14 million refugees left their respective countries. No one was allowed to return. Section 7 of the Indian constitution explicitly denies the Muslim refugees the right to hold Indian citizenship. Not only does the Indian constitution deny the right of return to Muslim refugees; it even cancels their previous citizenship, if they were Indian citizens when they left India.
After WWII some 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from countries in Eastern Europe. Not one was allowed to return.
The Palestinian refugee problem was created by the war they started. After the war, some 150, 000 Palestinian Arabs remained in Israel. Now they are 1.3 million. But, in the areas taken by the Arab armies, not a single Jew was allowed to remain. They were either killed or expelled and their homes destroyed. Now, that is ethnic cleansing par excellence…
On November 29, 1947 the UN voted to esatblish two states in Mandatory Palestine, one Arab and one Jewish. The Palestinian Jewish community accepted the partition. The Arabs did not. You can read the speeches of the Arab leaders vehemently opposing the partiton. One day after the vote, on November 30, 1947, armed Arabs ambushed a civilian bus going from Petach Tikva to Lydda, killing five Jews and wounding seven others. That was the beginning of the war and that is why it should be called the 1947-48 war and not just the 1948 war. The terror attacks on the Jewish population went and intensified. Attacks on the roads and on isolated villages became a frequent occurrence. The Arab Liberation Army, under the command of Kaukji attacked Kfar Szold in the upper Galilee in January 1948. That same month the village of Kfar Etzion was attacked by a group led by Abd el Kader el-Huseini. Later Yehiam and Tirat Tzvi were attacked. The Arabs were able to disrupt the Jewish lines of communications and succeeded in blocking some major axes to Jewish traffic. The Jews responded and an atmosphere of continuous warfare enveloped the country. This caused many thousands of Arabs to flee so as to avoid the battles. By April 1948, a month before Israel’s declaration of independence and before the invasion of the Arab regular armies, some 200,000 Palestinians have left.
On May 15, the day Israel was proclaimed, the regular armies of the Arab states invaded. They lost the war, but
some Jewish villages fell. The four kibbutzim in Gush Etzion, Kibbutz Beit-Haarava, the village of Mishmar Hyarden,
the Jewish neigbourhood of the old City of Jerusalem, Neve Yaakov. The Jews were either killed or expelled.
All of that is available in every library. But, in this thread ignorance appears to prevail…
I leave to Tree’s guess what would have been the fate of the Palestinian Jews had the Arabs won that war.
And, “ethnic cleansing” was not part of the Zionist ideology. Here is Ben Gurion in 1937:”We do not wish and we do not need to expel Arabs and take their place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven by all our activity
in the Land [of Israel] – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.” In 1947 he said: “In our state there will be non-Jews as well and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception, that is: the state will be their state as well.”
And, another important Zionist leader, Zeev Jabotinsky, wrote in one of his poems in 1923:”There (in the future state) will be prosperity and happiness for the son of the Arab, the son of the Christian and my son”. And in the thirties he wrote: “In the future state, if the prime minister is Jewish the vice-premier willl be Arab and vice versa”.
Is a great grandchild of a refugee of a part of Palestine, a current refugee from Israel?
On of the great confusions of the “human rights” movement in Israel/Palestine, is that it sadly does not sufficiently distinguish itself from the single state movement, or the pan-Arab or pan-Islamic forms that seek to eliminate Israel as a sovereign entity, if not remove all Jewish Israelis.
It confuses the status of whether someone is seeking reform or revolution.
Someone seeking reform is a friend, a person that desires that you be a more effective person/leader. Someone seeking revolution is an enemy, a fraud, pretending to be concerned about human rights, but secretly (or not so secretly) seeking your demise.
How to tell? What is the appropriate response to someone that speaks about human rights, but means the suppression of yours?
(The criticism applies to Netanyahu, to Palestinian solidarity, and to the far left, each quite similar.)
Again, why would a grandchild of a former refugee that resides in Lebanon for three generations (though denied citizenship), be entitled to property or citizenship in Israel?